Santa Monica scooter company Bird laid off employees in the Bay Area and elsewhere Thursday, months after buying out its rival Scoot, one of the companies that won a coveted San Francisco permit to rent out electric scooters, The Chronicle has learned.

The layoffs raise questions about promises the scooter operator made to employees and to San Francisco officials during the acquisition.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency let Bird acquire Scoot’s permit last year on the condition that it would “maintain the same or greater number of employees that Scoot has employed during the pilot to operate at the same or higher compensation ... and maintain Scoot’s commitment to labor harmony with your employees in San Francisco,” according to the agency’s letter. The agreement didn’t specify whether current employees would be retained.

SFMTA spokesman Ben Barnett said in an email Friday the agreement applied to the previous permit, not the one active now. The agency asked Scoot to provide more information on how the changes comply with the permit’s terms, particularly its hiring and labor plan.

Scooters in SF

A former Scoot employee, asking not to be named due to having signed legal documents that prohibit public comments against the company, said many original Scoot employees were among those fired. Ex-Scoot workers were told by Bird executives during the acquisition that if they were team players, they would “have a home” at the company, according to the employee.

“It was just quite a shock in terms of repeated verbal promises that they made,” the employee said.

A Bird representative said in an emailed statement Friday that the layoffs do “not impact our commitment to San Francisco or to providing its residents and visitors access to the highest quality and most reliable shared micromobility vehicles and services.”

“We are planning to relocate a number of Scoot team members to our Santa Monica headquarters while also maintaining an office in San Francisco for our operations and maintenance teams as well as a number of regionally specific roles,” the statement read.

Bird did not answer questions about what promises were made to former Scoot employees.

As to the number of layoffs, the company would say only that it was fewer than two dozen globally. Scoot also has offices in Spain and Chile. Bird did not say how many are relocating and how many original Scoot team members are left.

The fired employee who spoke with The Chronicle said co-workers had similar experiences, as text messages reviewed by The Chronicle appeared to confirm: invitations to video-chat with a Bird executive and a human resources employee, ostensibly to finalize details related to the process of integrating the companies.

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Instead, the employees were told their positions would be eliminated effective Dec. 9. The former employee told The Chronicle they are being given one month of severance pay.

Bird was one of three companies temporarily banned by the city after rolling out electric scooters without permission in spring 2018. Scoot, founded in San Francisco, was one of two companies to get a permit last year — and the only one to get a second permit this year to operate up to 1,000 scooters. Scoot was acquired by Bird in June and worked with city officials to transfer the permit to the Santa Monica company.

Some former Scoot employees left at the time of acquisition or in the months after. The former employee stayed “because I felt loyal to the people that I’d worked with and I wanted to support them and support the people who decided to stay.”

“I felt grateful to the founder and CEO who are incredibly kind and compassionate to care for people during that process,” the individual said. “I wanted to support keeping the culture of that company alive because it was a really special place.”

Scoot appealed to that former worker as a company that hired local workers, paid decent wages and provided a useful service to a broad array of San Franciscans.

“I was captivated by that,” the ex-employee said.

Scoot’s successful application for a new permit this year expressed a commitment to hiring employees, not contractors, and recruiting from local communities. It mentioned Scoot’s acquisition by Bird but did not address the retention of current Scoot employees.

“We respect our employees, and will maintain a harmonious relationship with them or any association acting on their behalf,” the application read. “We evaluate our practices with respect to our staff to ensure open lines of communication, engagement, and payments for services that are consistent with the marketplace and operational needs.”

Scoot President Michael Keating, who signed the application, did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

Mallory Moench joined The San Francisco Chronicle in 2019 to report on business. During the coronavirus pandemic, she is covering health care workers and hospitals.

She previously covered immigration and local news for the Albany Times Union and the Alabama state legislature for the Associated Press. Before that, she freelanced with a focus on Yemen while studying at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism.